Wael Ghonim: A "One-Off" for Silicon Valley?

http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-501465_162-20031608-501465.html

by cwb71 • 15 years ago

24 20 15 years ago

The first comment on this article is the best:

I will not, NOT be using Google again until he is FIRED! Go to Egypt Wael Ghonim, you are no longer welcome here!! Going to Bling now, not Google.

I wonder what kind of features Bling has.

spitfire• 15 years ago

Gold, Lots of gold. and diamonds.

joshu• 15 years ago

Best 20% time project ever.

nostrademons• 15 years ago

I think it's more his 100% time project now.

(Or more realistically, his 300% time project.)

tokenadult2• 15 years ago

I'd love to see what could be done by some of Google's Chinese-speaking managers.

redthrowaway• 15 years ago

Not much, considering they're all in Hong Kong.

tokenadult2• 15 years ago

Wael Ghonim wasn't based in Egypt for his most recent position with Google.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-egypt-go...

"A year ago, he moved to Dubai, United Arab Emirates, for Google. His mother, Iman, saw that he would be crestfallen by the poverty when he returned for vacations."

There are still plenty of Googlers who have family ties to China and who have occasion to travel there.

rst• 15 years ago

In Egypt, the revolution succeeded because the army didn't fire on protesters. In China... things have been different, and they probably still are.

michaelty• 15 years ago

"There’s one thing that you men will be able to say when you get back home. And you may thank God for it. Thirty years from now when you’re sitting around your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks you what did you do in the great World War II, you won’t have to say, "Well, I shoveled shit in Louisiana.""

--Patton

hasenj3• 15 years ago

I've seen a 45 minute interview[0] with him. His activism doesn't have much to do with his hackery. He's clearly an NF[1] (Keirsey's Idealist temperament). Most hackers are NTs (Keirsey's Rational temperament), say, about 75%[2] of them.

He's very emotional.[3]

[0] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VlBAzvX9Xw4

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idealist_temperament

[2] http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=946249

[3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kafxFOTepSo

hasenj3• 15 years ago

Not sure why I was down voted.

Here's clip [3] with subs (can't edit parent post).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V690GO7YzgA

sunir• 15 years ago

Armchair psychology is inappropriate.

kbatten• 15 years ago

US Companies, including Google involve themselves in politics (both domestic and international) all the time. I think it is a bit silly to say that "tech companies don't want to take political positions".

techdmn• 15 years ago

Agree. Also interesting that an employee protesting on his own time is considered a "political position", while selling equipment used by dictators to oppress their people is not. The article does imply that this is not always the case, but in my experience it seems much more acceptable to engage in the latter than the former.

ChuckMcM3• 15 years ago

If Google follows its internal policies it will have to fire him. (err let him go) And while I agree that he did it on his "own time" as you will recall all of the news reports pegged him as a "Google Executive" which certainly gives the impression that its Google sanctioned (which it wasn't according to the article). I've been on both sides of this question at various times in my career and it really requires the employee to decide which is more important to them and then to dedicate themselves to that and step away from the other. I think Wael made his choice, and I admire him for it.

(I find that he keeps getting demoted too, he started out in charge of everything in the middle east and now he is down to a mere product manager :-)

blueben2• 15 years ago

http://twitter.com/#!/google/status/36521734542868480

"We're incredibly proud of you, @Ghonim, & of course will welcome you back when you're ready - cf. http://goo.gl/2BDGp

I don't understand why anyone would think Google would fire Ghonim for taking personal time to help bring democracy to his homeland. That just isn't the kind of company Google is.

Wael Ghonim: A "One-Off" for Silicon Valley?

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